Abstract

: In "A Certain Blindness in Human Beings" William James observes that humans are blind to what is strange, most especially to strangers. He both forbids a quick judgment of strange lives and urges "tolerance, respect," and "indulgence." And yet James does more. By modeling a strange self, himself, through the style of his essay, he displays a self that has the capacity "to be grasped" by the strangeness of others. Similarly, of four novels that were written in the wake of 9/11, by Richard Ford, Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, and Don DeLillo, only that by DeLillo is responsive to the event, and he does so by means of the Jamesian remedy: stylistically embodying the "riven self."